I Broke the Night - by Big Dee

I saw her first. Me. Just a heap across the room, slumped like a pile of laundry someone had finished with and left to rot. It was my skin, but it looked like it had been sitting in the dark for too long. Deep, bruised pits under the eyes. Clothes hanging off the bone. My own face staring back at me, but the life was gone. Empty. Then the air turned to lead. He was just there. A man carved out of shadow and filth. Blood was a wet map across his hands, smeared thick over his mouth. He did not walk. He just existed, heavy and slow, closing the distance. And the letters on his coat, DEATH, did not just sit there. They burned. They felt like they were branding themselves into my brain. I tried to move. I tried to scream. Nothing. My legs were dead weight, like they were filled with cooling concrete. My throat was packed with dry sand. DEATH: Look at yourself. Look how you are fading. Come here.The panic was a physical hand crushing my ribs. I wanted to run, to grab that girl and shake her awake, but I could not even catch my breath. I looked past him and saw faces I knew, the people I love. They were drifting away like smoke, reaching for me, their mouths moving in silent, desperate pleas. I reached back. My fingers hit nothing but freezing air. ME: What… what do you want? DEATH: Twice I came. Twice you ignored me. Now, see what you have become. The fear hooked into my gut and pulled. My heart was slamming against my ribs so hard I thought the bone would snap. I forced a whisper out, the words scratching my throat like glass. “The Son of Man has power over death. I shall not die.” Then something in me just broke. I did not just speak. I tore the air open. ME: I know you! I see you! Devil! Go back! In Jesus’ name!<img src="/media/inline_insight_image/1774370751392.jpg"/>White, blinding light detonated through the room. It tore through the shadows. The figure shrieked, crumpled up like a piece of burning paper, and vanished. Then, the floor hitting my face was the only thing that brought me back. I was gasping, my lungs burning like I had been underwater for miles. My shirt was soaked, sticking to my skin, and I pressed my chest against the floorboards just to feel the solid weight of the world again. My hands would not stop shaking. I just stayed there, pinned down by my own heartbeat, listening to it thud against the wood. I stayed there a long time, my eyes darting around the dark, scanning every corner, every shadow, trying to convince my legs that they could actually move again. Trying to be sure the room was finally empty. Trying to be sure I was the only one left.

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